September 4, 2009--Tangled with plastic, rope, and various aquatic animals, a "ghost net" drifts in August 2009 in the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch, a loose, free-floating "dump" twice the size of Texas.

While large pieces are common, the garbage patch is not an island of plastic, the team found on their 19-day expedition in August. Much of the debris is in the form of countless thumbnail-size scraps.

"I think the plastic-confetti metaphor is probably closest to the reality," said expedition member Jesse Powell, a doctoral student in biological oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.